The Twins' Kendrys Morales, center, celebrates in the dugout after hitting the second of back-to-back home runs in the second inning against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at Angel Stadium of Anaheim on June 24, 2014 in Anaheim, Calif. (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Kendrys Morales, back in the stadium where he crafted his lofty reputation as a big-league hitter, did some playful shadowboxing by his clubhouse locker late Tuesday afternoon.

The same quick hands that serve him so well in the batter's box once nearly convinced him to give up the game entirely.

This was back during his youth in Cienfuegos, Cuba. The Twins' designated hitter remembers being 6 or 7 years old and idolizing Teofilo Stevenson, the great Cuban heavyweight and Olympic gold medalist he would eventually meet.

"I liked boxing," Morales recalled. "I didn't like baseball."

While other children naturally gravitated to baseball, Morales preferred sports with a faster pace.

Along with boxing, for which he showed early talent, Morales mentioned soccer, basketball, even volleyball as games he enjoyed more than baseball.

"I don't know why," said Morales, who homered in the second inning Tuesday night in his return to Angel Stadium. "Maybe I wanted to play something with more action, run around with my friends."

Morales, who turned 31 last week, just remembers having a complicated relationship with baseball as a boy. The game came so easily to him -- too easily? -- that he preferred the challenge of bouncing on the balls of his feet and firing jabs at other kids in the ring.

Julio Aguada had other ideas.

A youth baseball coach in Cienfuegos, a coastal town where Morales had moved with his family at age 4, Aguada and Rafael Morales had mutual friends.

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Aguada had seen Rafael, a construction foreman, play what amounted to town ball, and he had watched young Kendrys swing a bat as well on the local fields.

Aguada could not believe the boy would resist the island's most popular sport.

"He used to come every day to my house," Morales said. "He would talk to my father: 'Hey, what happened to Kendrys? He didn't go to practice today? Why not?' Every day."

Morales told this story over the weekend after meeting Chicago White Sox slugger Jose Abreu for the first time. Abreu, enjoying a tremendous rookie season after signing a $68 million deal, also grew up in Cienfuegos, where he too learned the game from Aguada.

"He knows a lot about me," Morales said of Abreu, "from talking to him."

Aguada's persistence was as impressive as his scouting ability.

"He knew I didn't like baseball, but he wouldn't give up on me," Morales said. "I don't know what happened. I guess he saw something in me, saw my talent."

In time, at his father's urging and with Aguada's coaching, Morales grew to see the merits of baseball over boxing, of delivering punishment to a weathered baseball rather than absorbing it from the wrong end of 16-once gloves.

He committed to the sport at age 8 and has never looked back.

"Right now I don't like boxing," he said with a laugh. "I like baseball."

At 18, he became the first teenager since the legendary Omar Linares to start for Cuba's national team. Morales later broke a 30-year-old RBI record while playing for Industriales in Havana.

After 11 failed attempts at defecting, Morales finally made it off Fidel Castro's island a decade ago. He signed with the Angels on Dec. 1, 2004, and within two seasons he was in Las Grandes Ligas.

The Twins, who signed him as a free agent 17 days ago, are his third big-league team in the past three seasons, and there could well be a fourth this winter.

Then again, the Twins are pretty happy with what Morales has given them so far.

"I think he's blended in here tremendously," Twins general manager Terry Ryan said. "He made that transition easy. I think he's taken a leadership role in that clubhouse."

Twins great Tony Oliva, also raised in Cuba, takes pride in what Morales has accomplished.

"I've been watching him for many years," Oliva said. "He's a complete ballplayer. Everybody knows he's a dangerous hitter, but he's a good person, too. I think he's going to be very good for our team."

By season's end, Morales will have made roughly $21 million in his major league career. Still, he wonders about those he left behind.

Standing at first base Saturday, he asked Abreu about Aguada, their old coach.

"It's been a long time since I've seen him," Morales said. "I haven't heard from him, talked to him on the phone -- nothing."

Abreu assured him that Agauda follows Morales and his career from afar. This made the once-reluctant ballplayer smile.